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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

The Power of Music in Writing

I have a confession...I hate writing love/romance/kissing scenes. Well, let me rephrase, it's not that I hate them, it's just that I'm not really any good at them.

Believe me, I wish it wasn't this way. I read Rachel Harris, Simone Elkeles and Katie McGarry all with total awe, and wonder why can't I do that? Why can't I just create heat in the blink of an eye without struggling with where the guy should place his hand? Or where the girl should move her lips?

This is all a big problem for me because right now I'm editing my YA Historical...wait for it...Romance.

Yes, I am a glutton for punishment. When I wrote this book, I skipped over much of the romance by just putting in "write something smexy here." And when I finished the book (except for those scenes) I worried that I wouldn't be able to pull the romance part off.

But then I was driving in the car one day and Ed Sheeran's "Kiss Me" came on the radio. In an instant, I was in the scene with my characters. The lyrics to the song had me actually visualizing how my characters' first kiss would be. I stopped what I was doing, turned around, and drove home. I raced in the door, downloaded the song, and played it full blast, over and over, while I wrote a love scene I never knew I had in me.

Music is a crazy thing. It gets us pumped up or makes us melancholy. A single note can force us to remember heartbreak or pure unadulterated love. Above all things, it makes us FEEL.

As a writer, I've found many things give me inspiration, but nothing is as powerful as music.

What about you? Does music make you a better writer? Is there a song that has inspired a scene in your manuscript or even helped you come up with a new idea? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

1 comment:

I don't know that I'd say music has made me a better writer, but it often makes me feel better while I'm writing.

Back a couple of years ago, when I was working on my first 'real' novel, I jumped in the car and Dylan's Tangled Up In Blue was on the radio. I've always liked that song, it's probably my favorite Dylan tune, but something in it that day struck me as it never had before, and something in the tone and them of it jibed so well with what I was writing. I ended up listening to it almost every day after that while drafting.